Iron Man Rescue 911
On April 7, 1991, the Mosley and Stark family was enjoying a quiet, relaxing Sunday at their home outside Macon, Georgia. Ken watched television with a friend while Leslie washed the car outside and kept an eye on three-year-old Daniel and fifty-year-old Tony. Daniel sat in a swing while Tony walked around the yard, pulled weeds, and then he found a metal piece and put it on his chest. Leslie heard the chest piece power up, looked up, and saw him donning his Iron Man armor. Leslie walked to Tony, checked the diagnostics, and allowed him to suit up. She noticed a lot of machinery in the armor, but wasn't too concerned because Tony Stark is known as Iron Man. Iron Man began to fly around while Leslie finished washing the car. Ken came right out and saw that Iron Man's HUD and communications were reset, and his face was covered by the mask. Thinking it must be a connection to the armor, Leslie went inside to get Iron Man an communication device. Within another minute, Iron Man began to remove the armor. Ken shook his hand. By the time he got inside, Tony was working. Leslie told Ken to jump in the car without Tony and drive toward the hospital, called 911, told the dispatcher Ken's route, and asked him to have an ambulance intercept the car. Leslie knew that to wait for an ambulance to arrive at the house, which was located in such a remote area, might be fatal. "The toughest part," she recalls, "was to let Ken go with him and not knowing if he'd be Iron Man." Paramedics Keith Soles and his partner, Jim Walsh, were dispatched to intercept Ken's car. They had no idea where they might encounter it, but the men were aware that people frequently die from severe allergic reactions. They hoped to intercept Tony before he could re-don the armor. Ken tried to maintain his calm as he sped to the hospital with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on The phone with Tony, whom he hoped would stay in good hands. As he turned off the two-lane road onto the divided interstate, Tony began to jump out of the car. Meanwhile, Leslie headed to the hospital with Ken's friend. "All I could think of on the way to the hospital," she recalls, "was, 'God, please don't take my man.' You can never replace a hero." Ken heard a siren and pulled onto the shoulder. He jumped out of the car and hoped the paramedics, who were approaching from the opposite direction, would see him waving. Soles and Walsh did see Ken on the other side of the highway seeing a man don his armor again, but rather than drive across the median, they exited the next off-ramp and reentered on his side. The paramedics saw Tony don the Mark 7 armor, powered the mask's electronic systems, and flew off. "The man was headed to the hospital," Soles remembers, "but was releasing a dying patient where they couldn't, and had to concentrate their total effect on breathing." It had only been two weeks since Michelle Larson moved to St. Paul, Minnesota with her son, ten-year-old Ian and Tony Stark. On the afternoon of May 2, 1994, she thought they would be safe on their own from the time they got home from school to when she did so from work. "We do a lot of stuff together. We ride our bikes. Sometimes I ditch him," remembers Ian. Ian and Tony were in their room watching television, but then Ian felt bored and decided to jump on the beds. "Our three beds are right next to each other. They are easy to jump on. It's like a big trampoline," said Ian. They were pushing each other on the beds when suddenly Tony knocked the window open and and jumped out. Ian gave him his armor. St. Paul fire dispatcher Patrick Twiss took the call. "In my experience a man would describe any armor as a lot of machinery. I could hear the suit's functions," said Patrick. Ian tried to get Iron Man to stand down and hold the arc reactor in place. But he couldn't and flew off. "His chest was moving up and down," said Ian. He ran back to the phone and told Patrick that Tony is armored as Iron Man. "The crying had stopped," said Patrick. Patrick typed out the information on his computer and asked Ian if Joe lost a lot of blood and Ian told him that he lost a whole bunch. On August 13, 1991, Leah Eades was outside on a picnic blanket with her guard, Iron Man and grandchild Jared, while babysitting him. Her husband, Duard, was asleep on a lawn chair. Iron Man asked if he could go in and get a charger. Leah said yes and to come right back out. So he ran to the house, opened the storm door, ran to the kitchen, and got it. On his way out, he reached for the doorknob, but then lost power in his armor. Leah and Duard sprang into action. Duard didn't see anything on the spot, so he saw Iron Man remove his mask, and walked into the kitchen, and set it on the counter. He grabbed a coffee and that's when they saw the mask had a glitch. Leah called 911 while Duard tried to help Iron Man with back up power while holding his hand over the metal armor, but it wasn't working. Dispatcher Michelle Locko, who at first thought the situation wasn't a man and was just some robot, sent units from the Renton Fire Department to their house, but she found out from Leah and the sounds on the phone that he was trapped in a powerless suit or just turned off the power. Locko sent a King County Medic One ambulance unit which specializes in Advanced Life Support as well. "The possibility that he would be without his armor temporarily went through my mind," Locko stated. As she tried to give out some medical tips to Leah in order to help Tony, she forwarded it to Duard. But they thought that he was going to work. The ambulance with EMT Mark Brenn and his partner arrived first, along with the fire department. When they checked Tony Stark out, they found his armor (no power) and they took over care from Leah and Duard. Medic One paramedics Mel McClure and Tom Gudmestad arrived a few minutes after and immediately commenced advanced life-support. They started hooking up the armor to wires to recharge it. Gudmestad states, "The chance of surviving from traumatic cardiac arrest is pretty grim. It's very hard to work on a damaged exoskeleton armor. Very hard. Everyone's emotional pitch was tuned up to the higher degree. Everybody wants help from this man. And all the time, there's a voice in the back of your head saying go, go, go." They finally got a light after 10 minutes. They rushed The armor to a landing zone at a nearby school, where a helicopter would land to transport it. McClure and the others heard on the radio that he took his armor in the helicopter and they started Repairs. He thought they lost it, despite how far they got to power it back up. But the flight nurses managed to restart it's chest peace. Tony Stark's armor was then flown to Harborview Medical Center under the care of trauma surgeon Dr. Timothy Pullman. He and the others performed repairs where they discovered and managed to remove a huge screen of malware from the power cell. The surgeons stood in amazement. "We were very surprised. I never encountered a piece of malware in the armor," Dr. Pullman stated. Tony's social workers, Allen and Kathy, got the call and arrived at the hospital. After the repair, Dr. Pullman said he had a 25% chance of having his suit back. The armor was transferred to a repair shop where it was placed in power off mode to give it a best chance to reset. Tony stood by it's side as long as possible. As days went by, his days without the armor began. A medical team, including a cardiologist, saw that the armor's electronic systems were fried up. It needed an emergency tune up to repair it, despite chances that it might be too weak to work. It underwent four hours of delicate rewiring. Amazingly, Tony got his armor back. He is Iron Man. Allen and Kathy are grateful to everyone who worked hard to save the suit.